Recently I’ve been seeking God as to how are we going to grow? I’m trying to process all the ideas and figure out what is going to give people excitement to come try SouthView. God has spoken to my heart and has given me clarity. Go with your strengths. Build with your strengths and let God handle the weaknesses. Not a huge eye opening revelation but something many of us forget to do.
Being a new, small church with no full time staff, a pastor that works a full time job (not as a minister) and a huge amount of needs, I realized quickly that we can’t do it all. It’s natural to “try” to do it all regardless if you can. As a pastor, you want to meet people’s needs. You want everyone that comes to have something special they can connect with. Impossible. I have some good friends that decided to go to other churches that provides for their needs in a way that we can’t. Does it hurt…oh yeah. But honestly how can one small church meet the needs that everyone has? It can’t. Some people need a great youth group…we don’t even have any youth currently in our church. Although I can not wait to have an unbelievable youth group (and we will, trust me), we can’t concentrate on that right now. Some people want to have meetings every night going deeper into the word and studying it right, left, backwards and forwards, which isn’t a bad thing at all. Infact, studying God’s Word is important. Right now, without full time staff, it’s impossible. Having various meetings and classes for people requires staff, money, resources and time that we just don’t have right now. One day, I hope that people can find different classes and groups to connect with at our church. Currently we have 1 men’s group and 1 women’s group. That’s all we can handle right now.
Sometimes as Christians we think busy is good. The more we do for God the better we are. Honestly I believe God is looking for quality not quantity. If we are doing a bunch of “things” but not giving the attention to what God has called us to do, what good are we really doing? We become a bunch of clanging cymbals and loud noise.
The best thing we can do is be who we are called to be and not be swayed by the latest fad, fashion or effective strategy. Seek God for your identity and let that be the passion and vision that you focus on. Remember that there will always be better, more educated and gifted speakers, ministers, worship leaders, musicians, sales people, doctors, teachers, artists, etc than you. Once you learn to let go of the competition and be excited in who God has created you to be, you realize that the goals set before you can be obtained.
God knows what he was doing when He created you the way He did….don’t forget that. Hold true to the vision that God gave you. Don’t wavier. Don’t try to mimic others. Let them have their strengths and you have yours. Let’s show the world the variety of who God is instead of everyone looking, talking and acting the same. God is more creative than that.
There is a true freedom when you become who you were supposed to be. Try it!
M
Posted: April 27th, 2009 under Leadership.
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